A short and useful post from Carl Richards, author of "The Behavior Gap."

But then, the conversation shifted from the past to the future. It started simply enough, with one of us asking, “If we were having tea three years from now in this exact same place, sitting in these exact same chairs, what would need to happen for each of us to be happy with those three years?”

Talking about high school was great, but this was so much better. You could immediately feel energy and confidence enter the room as we started scheming.

I'm a big fan of skiing, but you don't need to be to enjoy this article. It's the story of the first Americans to ski Everest back in 2006. If nothing else, you'll want to see the photos.

Rob told me that at one point halfway down the face, he'd skied up to Kit, who'd related matter-of-factly that she was scared and didn't want to die. Rob said that he'd replied, "That's good," and then they both skied on down. Rob took Kit's revelation to have been just right: A sane and functional human on skis in the middle of the Lhotse Face should be both scared and not willing to die. And a husband, upon hearing that his wife is thinking correctly, should then concentrate on his own turns and his own unwillingness to die. That was, of course, the mindset required to survive.

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